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Beaverton City Council approves new commissions and aquifer agreement, reviews South Cooper Mountain plans

Cooper Mountain Nature Park file 2011

Kyle and Suzanne Feller walk along the trails at Cooper Mountain Nature Park, located in the thick of the South Cooper Mountain Planning Area. Preliminary plans address requirements to preserve natural areas, particularly near creeks and wetland environments, according to city documents.
(Oregonian/2011 )

Beaverton city leaders added two new citizen advisory boards, approved a regional agreement regarding water resources and reviewed preliminary plans for South Cooper Mountain’s future development during a recent City Council meeting.

The Beaverton City Council and Planning Commission met at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 8, in City Hall on Griffith Drive.

At the meeting, the council gave a 4-0 yes to the Diversity Advisory Board and Social Services Funding Committee, formalizing them as permanent citizen advisory boards. The boards are tasked with offering recommendations to the city council on local policies, and the Social Services Funding Committee will allocate money to social service organizations.

At this point, it’s difficult to guess when any visible developments will take place in the South Cooper Mountain Planning Area, according to city staff. Any construction is at least two years out in light of planning and permitting processes, and other outside factors could further push back the start date for any actual building.

Preliminary planning efforts offer no site-specific diagrams, said Joe Dills, senior planner with Angelo Planning Group. More details will be pieced together as studies and analysis move forward.

All three rough plans pinpoint the highest density development to the south of the planning area, near Scholls Ferry Road. Plans move gradually toward less dense development in the north near Farmington Road.

Dills walked city leaders through differences in potential development layouts and transportation networks under each of the three scenarios. It’s a balancing act of meeting Metro density requirements and keeping within what the landscape can support, he said.

Councilors and commissioners expressed some worry about the attainability and reliability of proposed transportation networks to help thousands of new residents navigate a growing area. The system will need to include new and improved arterial and collector streets, they said, while balancing regional transportation and environmental concerns.

Dills said the next steps in narrowing down and possibly meshing the three current options will carry planners through the next six months. The council and planning commission will receive updates throughout the ongoing planning process, he said. The next council update will likely be in January 2014.

Councilors asked that planning staff provide more frequent updates to city leaders on planning progress.

In other council news:

Representatives of the Washington County Animal Protection Multi-Disciplinary Team explained the organization’s role in Beaverton. A video highlighted the goals and accomplishments of the team, which received a Cameron Award for best community collaboration earlier this year. The team aims to integrate resources from police departments, animal shelters and other involved agencies to address the links between animal abuse and other crimes, namely domestic violence.

Councilors voted to award a $118,000 contract to DePaul Industries for construction flagging services during the remainder of the 2013-14 fiscal year.